The Dark Unseen

by Andrew C Jaxson

  Contents

  The Dark Unseen

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  The Fire Unseen - Preview

  The Unseen Series

  Author's Note

  About the Author

  Dedication

  Copyright

  THE DARK UNSEEN

  The Prequel to the Unseen Series

  (A Novella)

  by Andrew C. Jaxson

  The fire is a trance, a crackling, dancing spirit. Somewhere in the night, a crow calls. There’s an old legend around here that a crow once owned the only fire. It tried to keep the power for itself, but there was an accident, and the crow got singed and turned black, and the fire spread throughout the whole country. One little flame, and the whole world burned.

  I stare into the campfire, and everything fades around me. It’s beautiful, and dangerous, and powerful. It calls me.

  The wind changes direction, blowing stinging smoke into my eyes. I rub them and shift around a bit to avoid the haze. I don’t know what wood we put in that fire, but it burns dirty.

  Rebekah emerges from the tent wearing her sleeping bag like a caterpillar. I smile, and she grins back.

  “Wait for it,” she says. “Check out the caterpillar dance.” Bek puts her hands in the top corners of the sleeping bag so it becomes a full square and then does a dorky hip thrust back and forward. I laugh, and she trips and falls toward me. Fortunately, I catch her before she lands in the fire, and she settles in next to me, looking like a nun with the black top of her sleeping bag wrapped around her head.

  I grin. “You’re an idiot, Beks.”

  “That’s why you love me.”

  I fall silent. She leans in as if to kiss me. Finally. The whole point of this camping trip. I’ve been waiting for this moment forever. I’m ready. She smells amazing, and her eyes glisten in the firelight. They’re so big, and in the darkness she looks ethereal, as if no one this beautiful could actually exist. This is it. This is finally it. I close my eyes and wait for our lips to make contact.

  Bek farts, wafting the smell out of the sleeping bag and into my face. She falls back, laughing hysterically. Damn friend zone. I’ve been stuck in it four years. Seems I’ll be there for a long time coming.

  “You’re an idiot, and you’re disgusting.” I wrinkle my nose and pretend to gag.

  She pokes my ribs, smiling. “You thought I was going to kiss you, didn’t you? You closed your eyes and everything.”

  I scramble to recover. “I figured we were playing chicken. Last person to break away. Or break wind, in your case.”

  She giggles maniacally and grabs a marshmallow from the bag at my side. “Sure, Hud, sure.”

  I can never tell if she’s flirting, or joking, or playing with me. Sometimes I think it might be all three.

  “Can you guys get a room or something?” Daniel is back from the river, carrying a bucket of water for our dishes.

  “We’re all sharing a tent, Dan. Our room is your room. Also, you snore like a rhino.” Bek pushes her marshmallow onto the end of a stick and shoves it right into the fire.

  Dan dumps the bucket in the dirt, and water splashes over the side. “I’m honestly regretting coming on a camping trip with you two. I’m the permanent third wheel in this relationship.”

  Bek grins. “Why does everyone think third wheels are bad? Don’t third wheels make things more stable? Like, what if you had a tricycle without a third wheel?”

  Dan shakes his head. “That would make it a bicycle, Beks. Also, your marshmallow is on fire.”

  She pulls her stick out of the flames, watches the marshmallow glow blue as it burns, then blows it out, leaving a charred husk that threatens to drip off the gooey center. “Perfect.”

  I grimace. “I honestly don’t know how you eat them like that.”

  “This, my man, is the only way to eat them.” She shoves the whole thing in her mouth as Dan plops down next to us. This whole weekend has been amazing, despite my permanent residency deep within the bowels of the friend zone. It’s the perfect way to wind down after our exams, before we have to figure out what to do with our lives now school is done. A bunch of people from our year went out on a big party trip, but we’ve never been into that. It’s mostly just been the three of us, all through school. We don’t need anyone else to have a great time.

  In the firelight, the forest is magic. The oak trunks appear and disappear with the flickering flames, emerging and hiding themselves again, and when the fire drops real low, they disappear altogether, and we’re floating in a void of stars that carpet the sky and reflect off the river. The air is cold for summer, and my breath forms as vapour before me every time I exhale. I pull the cotton blanket tighter round my shoulders. We sit in silence. Silence is okay when there’s a fire, and when you’ve been together as long as we have. We don’t need words to hang out. Presence is enough.

  “Gonna miss you being around, Danny boy.” Bek breaks the silence.

  “I’m moving to the city, not New Zealand.”

  “It’s still like two hours from us.”

  “You two will have to come visit,” he says. “If you can stop flirting long enough.” My face burns, and I punch him lightly. He is undeterred. “Seriously, though, now I’m going, you two can finally stop pretending you’re not interested. You don’t have to stay single for my sake. You’re practically dating already.”

  Bek says nothing, which is encouraging.

  “We’ll come visit,” I offer. Bek nods.

  “Yeah-huh,” he says. “Doesn’t matter. I’ll be famous anyway.”

  “Then you can get us into all the rich actor parties,” Bek says, fluffing her sleeping bag.

  “Yep. My big break will only take a month. Too talented to stay undiscovered for long.” He’s kidding, mostly, but Dan has always had a slightly overinflated sense of his own ability. Last year, he was convinced he was born to be a rally car driver and tested his drifting skills on a rainy school night. He survived, but the insurance payout on both his car and the six others he wiped out had used up his entire savings. Most likely, he’ll try acting for three months then move on to something else when it doesn’t pan out immediately. Dan is my best friend, but his determination needs work. Not that I’m any better. I’ve changed my mind about my future career six times in the last week.

  But it actually depends on my results, and they haven’t come out yet. I’d love to do medicine, but then social work and the army and landscaping and lawyering have all looked like great options for at least a day. Bek’s going to be a writer, at least that’s her dream. Writers don’t make much cash, not at first anyway, so she might have to work a day job for a while. I’ve been trying to help her get one, which gives me an excuse to hang out with her one on one.

  “Hey, did you hear back from the clothes job?” I ask. I helped her prep for the interview on that one.

  “Yeah, they said I wasn’t ‘Sassy Girl material.’”

  “But you’re the sassiest girl I know.”

  “Apparently, Sassy Girl doesn’t want sassy girls.”

  “You could get them on false advertising.”

  “Sue them? That would be sassy, but ultimately pointless. Besides, I don’t know if I’m cut out for retail. Too many stupid customers. I don’t have the patience for morons.” She grins. “Except you boys.”

  Dan smiles and stretches. “Well, this moron’s going to bed. I’m wiped. Doing nothing takes it out of me.” He stands up and winks at me. I mouth thank you, and he shuffles off to the tent.

  We’re alone together. A cold wind plays in the tree canop
y overhead, and I shiver once more. The fire dances down, and up, and almost goes out. Bek nestles into my shoulder, and the fire nearly dies completely.

  “We need more firewood.” I say, cursing my bad planning. Now I have to disturb Bek, who’s comfortably pressed up against me. Hopefully she’ll come back once I’ve grabbed some more wood. She nods and yawns. I stand and pick up my torch, a dull red thing that barely lights the ground ahead of me, let alone anything else. The clearing we’re set up in is small, but there’s plenty of fallen wood just inside the tree line. I’ll pick up a handful, hopefully dry, and head back to where Bek is waiting for me. I can’t waste this opportunity. Not tonight.

  The warmth drains from me as soon as I leave the firelight. It really is cold tonight, which is weird for summer. My footsteps crunch and crack through the clearing. Any animals out here will hear me coming a mile away. That’s cool. I don’t love the idea of coming face to face with a fox or something this far out in the mountains. A few months ago, a man went hiking up here and disappeared. Probably bitten by a snake and died before he could get help.

  The moon is bright but hardly makes it through the thick canopy above, and my torch doesn’t reach past the first layer of trees. I step out of the clearing and into the undergrowth. Ghost gum trees shimmer as I dart my torch side to side, their white trunks stretching up into the night, like they’re reaching for something. I’m barely through the first set of trees, and I already can’t see our fire pit.

  Leaves crackle underfoot, and grass breathes past my legs. I stop for a moment to look through the scrub for firewood. In the distance, something creaks. An animal on a branch, or in a tree. Hopefully.

  I swallow and gather a few gnarled bits of dead wood. I turn to move back to the fire, and for a moment, I could swear there are eyes on me.

  “Hud.”

  I twist around, certain Dan has crept up behind me to freak me out. There’s no one there.

  “Hudson.”

  The voice comes from everywhere, and nowhere. It’s familiar, but I’m not sure why. It crawls around my feet, up my legs, around my neck. The voice slithers in my ear. There are a thousand tendrils, an icy finger, and a face, an awful, impossible face I’d forgotten until now.

  I shake my head, and the memories vanish. I’m creeping myself out. It’s dark up here, and I’m getting in my own head.

  Still …

  Nope. Nothing to be scared of. I take a few deep breaths and hurry back to the safety of the camp.

  I throw the wood on the coals, trying to build up the heat again. It flares to life, and our clearing is relit by the amber glow. Bek nestles back into my shoulder, and I feel better here in the safety of the known. Time to make my move.

  There was one moment, last year, when I thought maybe she was genuinely interested. She’s always loved to mess with me, joking around and stuff. My dad keeps telling me she’s flirting, which I hate. Parents always think every girl is in love with their kid. It’s embarrassing. He said it in front of Dan once, and Dan agreed, and they had this whole long conversation about it while I died inside, face bright red, wanting the roof to collapse on me and end the pain.

  Any time I’ve tried to talk to Bek about it, though, it never goes far. She makes a joke, or laughs it off or something. I don’t want to push things too much, either, ’cause I don’t want to damage our friendship. There’s always the risk that if we step things up, or if I press too hard, our friendship won’t be the same after. I don’t want to lose what we have. On the other hand, I can’t stay like this, either. It’s too hard. “Beks?”

  “Yeah?” she mumbles, half asleep.

  “What are we?”

  She sits up. “Pretty sure I’m human. Can’t speak for you, though.”

  Frustration rises in me. I’m awful at this. I’ve tried this conversation three times and have never gotten past the first sentence. It’s time to push through. “I’m superhuman, obviously. But that’s not what I’m asking.”

  “You want to define this, don’t you?” Her eyes widen, and I nod. “Why do we have to define this?”

  “I love being your friend, honestly. I do. But everything’s changing, and I’m not going to see you every day, and I don’t want us to lose—”

  “Whatever this is,” she finishes.

  An owl flies overhead, heading to wherever it’s supposed to be. My fear of the forest is gone, replaced with my fear of this conversation. This could go so badly. I could be about to ruin everything. Of course, I might also be about to get everything I’ve wanted for the last four years. I take a deep breath. “I can’t imagine things without you, and if you go off and end up with someone else, that’s what’s going to happen. We can’t stay like this forever.”

  “Like what?”

  “It’s like you want me here, but you don’t want me too close. I never know where you stand. Some days I think you’re interested, but other days it’s like you hardly know I’m alive. I’m basically a permanent resident in the friend zone.”

  “The friend zone? Seriously, Hudson, you’ve been watching too much TV.” She grabs another marshmallow, shoves it onto her stick, and holds it over the fire. Turning to face me, she smiles. “Besides, you’ve never been in this mysterious friend zone.”

  “You literally just pretended to kiss me and then farted in my face.”

  Bek thinks for a moment. “You have a point.” She sits up, close to me, throwing the stick into the fire. The marshmallow bubbles on the coals. “Let’s do it for real.”

  “Fart?”

  “Kiss. I’m serious.”

  “Are you?”

  Bek is so close I can feel her breath on my cheek. She nods, and I turn my head towards hers. My heart races, and she looks up at me, smiling. She’s so beautiful. Her lips part, our eyes close, and her lips meet mine. She tastes like strawberry marshmallows, and I feel her smile. My hand cups the side of her face, and moments later, she pulls away. My chest is light.

  “Consider that your official ticket out of the friend zone,” she says.

  “For real?”

  “For real.”

  There’s a loud clap behind me, and I jump. Bek screams. The clap continues. Dan is peeking out from the tent flap, applauding loudly. “Finally!” he calls.

  I make a rude gesture at him, and he zips the tent back up.

  Bek shakes her head, smiling, and turns her attention back to me. “I’m sorry I took so long.”

  “I’m gonna be honest, that was easier than I thought.”

  “Kissing me? Didn’t know it was such a chore.”

  “I meant our conversation. Although, you could do with some practice,” I tease.

  “Hey! Maybe later, once Dan’s asleep. Don’t want him creeping on us again and spoiling the mood.”

  “I heard that!” Dan calls from inside the tent.

  “Go to sleep, stalker!” I yell back. My voice echoes around us. Our camp is in the shadow of a huge cliff, although far enough back to avoid any falling rocks. At the moment, the cliff acts like a giant behemoth, blocking out the stars in that half of the sky. It helps shelter us from the wind, though, so it’s useful.

  At the top of the cliff, a few stars disappear for a moment, then they’re back, as if something has passed in front of them. Probably trees moving in the wind or a fox looking out from the summit. I’m really spooking myself tonight. Must be the cold.

  A memory crouches at the edge of my mind.

  I shake it off and turn my attention back to Bek. She’s all that matters right now. She rests her head against mine, and we sit quietly till the flames burn low. The wind picks up, whipping sparks from the fire. Thunder ripples from somewhere far away, and stars wink out as clouds build overhead. I pour water on the fire so the wind won’t get it going again, and we crawl inside the tent to avoid the coming storm.

  I wake with a start, and Bek wakes too. Rain is pelting our tent. It’s not heavy, but it’s persistent. The storm blew in soon after we crawled inside. Bek lies ne
xt to me, her head on my chest. We unzipped our sleeping bags and have them layered on top of us like blankets. The air mattress is cold, and I keep sticking to the plastic every time I move. Plus, it makes a hissing sound if I try to roll over. I shouldn’t have trusted Dad when he said this one worked. It’s been years since either of us went camping.

  When I was younger, we would often head up here. The main campground was at the edge of the national park, near these huge rock formations called the Boulders, but that campsite was way too busy. My parents preferred the company of birds, not humans, so we would avoid the crowds and come up here instead, although not quite as high in the mountains as we are now. I loved our trips out into the forest. We would go hiking up into the foothills, through canyons, following the riverlets as far as we could before night fell, then we’d set up camp again. We slept in swags instead of tents. They’re sleeping bags with a small support so you can cocoon yourself inside them. It was scary, sometimes, being so far from everyone, especially when foxes came sniffing around at night.

  A memory from back then scratches at the side of my brain like a rat, the same memory I had before, but it can’t quite break through. Something happened back then. Something I’ve forgotten. But being back here …

  Bek puts her feet on me, and they’re freezing. I shiver, and nudge them away.

  The tent is dripping from a seam, which causes a puddle of water to pool near the entrance. We’ve moved all our gear to avoid it, but in this small space, it means everything is even more cramped. I haven’t checked my phone—it’s been off since we got here because there’s no reception—but judging by the dark, it’s still the middle of the night. Bek puts her feet on me again, and this time, I tickle her in revenge. She squeals, and thrashes around, and smacks Dan in the head.

  He swears and hits us both with his pillow. “I’m glad you guys are together and all, but can you shut up and calm down? This is a tiny tent, and I don’t want you ‘making the beast with two backs’ next to me.”

  “The what?” I ask.